Parallel Mesh
by Xelrina
Summary: Perfume. Sakura adores various exotic scents. And she is going to teach you how to brew your own concoction. Interested individuals please click on the link to register. Note that this is on a first come first serve basis. Rated T for lang. and content.


Parallel Mesh

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Everyone should have a hobby, Sakura decided. They relieve you from rare cases of boredom, and it gives you something to comfort your dented confidence. Sakura was very proud of her hobby. As a medical nin and as Tsunade-sama's prized student, both qualities gave her the advantage to preen and perfect her collection. Especially on 'special' missions, with this kind of opportunity Sakura was not shy to use the advantages to broaden her knowledge. With luck, she might even get something exclusive, which she did on her previous 'errand' for Tsunade-sama. But there is one thing different about Sakura's hobby though, and that is nobody knows of it. Beneath the underneath, the pink haired kunoichi has perfected her version of that piece of wisdom. She grins proudly, tears of her achievement sparkling from her pale jade coloured eyes, and she swiped the back of a gloved hand to dry them, staining her skin in the process. Sakura was proud and the ecstatic grows into the familiar doting buzz whenever she was alone in her studio, surrounded by her family. Today though, a large amount comfort came from her newest addition. And no one _knows,_ even when she flaunted it in people's faces many times before. She giggles like a fan girl of Sasuke-kun. A sense of nostalgia washed over her tired, overworked body, and she steps backwards to better survey every single object that littered in some sort of order in front of her. Her pride churned and multiplied by itself. Her pink head bobbed up and down slowly in consent, her lips trembled as they quirk and her bloodshot eyes brightened zealously. Sakura removed her gloves and smack the rubbery moulds together with a squeaky _twag_. Nodding one last time, she leaves her studio quietly, but stops at the door. The opening shines a rectangle of light into the dark room from the outside and looks back fondly. The soft crowfeet from the corners of her eyes crinkled with joy, the kind when an old lady looks at her children and grandchildren and then realizes how far she has reached in life, and how much she had gone through to reach _here_. And so with a spring in her step, Sakura exists and closes the door gently behind her slumbering collection.

-

"Sakura-chan!" A bush of messy blonde hair suddenly shoved in her line of vision, and the pink haired kunoichi looked up from her notes to see her teammate grinning cheerily down at her. Naruto disengaged himself from the ceiling and landed with a graceful crouch on the yellow polished floorboards at her feet. The grinning young jounin bounced up from his landing and leaned into her personal space, trying to peek at her notes.

Sakura huffed and shuffled the papers behind her back. The expressive face pinched, his eyes straightened with his eyebrows shot high up into his forehead protector. Sakura, to her relief, muffled a nervous laugh as Uzumaki Naruto leaned away eventually.

"Maa..what are you so secretive about? Is that your new mission brief or something?" Sakura watched with amusement as the boisterous blonde fold his arms across his jounin vest in a contemplative stance (a pose Sakura finds familiar), a hand shot out of his pose to adjust his gleaming identity tied to his forehead, out of habit, and pride. There was no way she would be reading a mission brief in public like this, and she knew he knows it. Naruto was acting more and more like the ero-sennin he was training with, and with a little touch of Kakashi-sensei. Sakura mourned silently. She had seen Konohamaru's newer version of the sexy-no-jutsu last week, which Ebisu fell prey to. Naruto was immensely proud, needless to say.

The medic kunoichi sighed with a small smile playing at her lips. "No, _Tsunade-sama_ isn't sending me away. At least not so soon." She had just come back from the Hidden Grass two days ago from an S-rank mission with lots of gifts from her dead opponents.

"Hn." His pout turned into a snort. Naruto whirled around and sat beside his friend and long time crush, his untamed shoulder length mane flaring behind his head with a glorious swirl as his abrupt movement came to an end. No one said anything as both shinobis enjoyed a rare heaty summer evening together under the shade of the Hokage's Tower. Sakura went back to reading her medical notes. _Eventually_, she felt Naruto's sly presence closing in and quirked a smile that shortly grew into a smirk when the blonde shinobi mulled over specific terms in her notes aloud. Pale jade eyes shifted onto the curious face peering at her and she felt the hypnotic pull of those bright blue eyes, _alive_. Her body sagged with defeat quite predictably, and decided that she was not going to get anything memorized with this idiot hovering about; Sakura went into a lengthy explanation about rare plants and bugs and their useful properties.

When Sakura was done, she wasn't sure if Naruto had understood her or not. He was a jounin after all…The young man sat next to her with a golden arch above an eye. "_What_?"

Sakura giggled with a hand covering her mouth daintily, but eventually it erupted into a snorting chortle.

Naruto blushed indignantly, and whined with his wild hand gestures, nothing rude of course or this mini Tsunad- oh no, not mini. _Or_ Godaime's disciple would send his sorry arse flying across the Hokage Stone Wall, his pitiful outcome for the entire village to see. He sniffed fiercely and shot the giggling female a dirty look, and caught a whiff of something in the air.

"What perfume are you wearing this time? Smells weird." Naruto wrinkled his nose as Sakura thwacked his bushy head with her papers non-threateningly.

"It's not weird, Naruto. You won't understand, you're not a girl." The pink haired medic rolled her eyes and stared out into the lush greenery that had sprouted at the far ends of Konoha in the last two years. She could almost hear Yamanaka Ino's shrilly indignities from her flower shop far away.

"Che!" He snorted and reached up to adjust his forehead protector, out of habit.

They stayed like this for a bit before Naruto announced he had to go meet with Iruka-sensei for ramen. Sakura bid him goodbye and good luck with his training.

"See you tomorrow!" She watched the jogging figure wave before disappearing into a puff of smoke, the lingering smell of the foxy shinobi making her nose tingle a little.

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She clutched her mask and ran a shaky finger across the painted and waxy surface of the bulges and indents. Sakura threw on the neutral coloured armour and gathered her necessities before strapping the mask on. Her lithe form illuminated by the streetlights cast a long arch of a shadow across her room, and onto an old memory framed on her dresser. She'd never told anyone why she joined the elite faction, and to everyone else who knew they thought it was her intelligence and extensive knowledge on the exclusive from being Godaime's student that got her the invitation letter two and half years ago. Naruto thought she would reject them, Ino thought she 'had gone crazy!', and Shikamaru had just raised an eyebrow before shrugging nonchalantly about women (even though he went in before her). Kakashi had not been exactly thrilled (not outwardly) about her decision and was still a little unnecessarily wary whenever in her presence. Her mother never knew.

Sakura leaped from her window ledge without looking back and merged with the night. As the warm wind whipped at her speeding frame, her heart pounded furiously against her chest, her taut muscles barely able to contain the excitement her body was generating. A shudder slipped down her straight spine as it began to grip her entire body. _Calm_! She commanded, and her tensed body relaxed slightly and quickly bent into an agile arch as she leaped across yet another rooftop swiftly. For anyone who didn't know, which is everyone, Sakura grinned behind her mask; her lips parting to reveal a set of pearly white teeth which nobody could see. The reason why she joined the ANBU.

The tiny meeting room was filled with a dozen of masked soldiers. They lingered near the empty walls, leaving the centre exposed. The more experienced ones had spread themselves out evenly, occasionally catching the knowing eyes of their comrades. One anbu obviously a newbie, appeared in a grand puff of smoke in the centre of the room, officially making their numbers odd. The one that just arrived looked across her shoulder and immediately joined the other newbies in a corner where quite a few of them have gathered. There was no clock in the room but everyone knew someone important was late. That newbie was right on the dot, that lucky.

The Hound looked across the room and caught the eye of the Owl. They stared at each other for a while before breaking the gaze. One anbu with the Mouse mask slipped surreptitiously next to the Hound, and elbowed his side. A low chuckle rumbled from him as he whispered into the Hound's ears. It must have been something because the Hound tossed one look at his comrade before sliding away.

"Hey! Come on.."

The Hound, with a mop of gray hair that defies gravity glided stealthily to a stop next to the Owl. Neither of them spoke. Across them the newbies chatted and the Mouse ganged together with the shier 'in-betweens' rankers and started an uninteresting conversation. Sakura tensed inwardly as Kakashi came to stand next to her. The pink haired kunoichi caught a whiff of his scent and felt wholly aroused. Maybe it should have been her to avoid him instead of the other way round. It was almost too much for her to take. Almost. Suddenly, Kakashi flicked out a kunai and played with it. Sakura watched from the corner of her pale eyes at the man she called sensei slouched lazily against the wall with a hand behind his back, as the other one twirled a kunai in an almost bored like manner. But the Owl for her intelligence knew better than to take him as what one sees. Beneath the underneath, for him it has become a second nature. After a while, Sakura noted with a startling dread that Kakashi's scent was spreading much faster with that metal knife twirling and twirling and twirling and twirling and twirling-

Sakura grabbed the neck of the kunai as it swerved towards her direction. The Hound looked over, his height almost made him look like he was looming on purpose. Sakura removed her hand and went back to her impassive pose before the interruption. Kakashi pocketed his knife wordlessly.

"Is there something you need?" came a neutral voice. The ends of the defying gray hair barely stirred as its master adopted the same posture as the female nin beside him. "What makes you think I want anything?" He frowned faintly at her behind his mask.

Straight to business. This trick was unusual, Sakura half mused as his steady wave of scent continue to test her reserve. Before she could answer, the door opened and the Locust marched in. His impressive frame instantly commanded everybody's attention as the man took centre stage. The tension multiplied when every breathing space seemed scarce. Nobody could see the crescent smile behind the mask.

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Tonight was not her lucky moment, and inner Sakura raved like a monkey on crack.

"Hound and Owl will do the clean up at point B5a0." Their team leader's voice cackled over the static filled equipment.

Sakura picked her bloodied self up from the ungraceful sprawl on the moss-covered ground. Multiple shallow cuts lined her arms and legs, and she felt like a zebra or something as she examines her precise wounds. She looked over to the five motionless bodies that littered the ground, one of which the Hound was now attending to. Like her, he had not suffered any serious injury but that long slash on his lower waist would not stop bleeding. Sakura pulled out a roll of bandage from her medic pouch and passed it to Kakashi. He muttered thanks without looking up from his handiwork of wires and knives, took the soft roll after he was done with one of them. As her teacher tended to his own wound, Sakura took in the messy scene quickly and got to work with the same dedication and skill. She wondered briefly whether she could get back the bandage.

Pink head nodded brusquely in his direction when she was done. The moon was exceptionally bright and round tonight, or this morning to be precise, and Sakura felt oddly poetic all of the sudden. If one of Hatake Kakashi's famous snarling hounds was present, the fairytale could be perfect. Sakura broke herself from her childish reverie and began to pick up the weapons that were theirs and masked their tracks. Inner Sakura was unusually subdued.

Sakura stepped back to survey the entire scene as she had done with her collection, but there was no emotion for the dead enemies. They were trash. But… the one grating on her presence was a treasure, _alive_.

"I'm done." She felt necessary to inform her partner again, and gestured vaguely at the dead bodies.

"Hound and Owl have cleared point B5a0." She pressed her earpiece.

The Hound nodded and made a turn to move. The Owl followed.

-

Sakura shut herself in her private studio immediately after she got back to her apartment. She leaned despairingly on her back against the door and slid down with a flop, her hair sticking out in all directions. Her legs spread outwards and her arms extended limply from their sockets, resting on her lap. She gulped the air greedily as another wave of shudder overtook her entire sweaty body. She clamped her eyes tightly as she tried not to think. However, the various scents in her studio were making it very hard. It was telling her not to do it. Don't even try, you won't succeed. He's off limits!A stronger wave of nausea slammed into her gut and she forced herself to drink another gulp of intoxicating air. Her body trembled as her instincts fought ferociously with her mind. _You can't. _

_But they're family too_

Stop cajoling me. I said no.

_They're part of the family-_

Sakura rammed her head backwards. Painfully, she peeled her eyes and saw her stars. All of them looking down at her with gentle smiles on their faces, as if the horrors of their lives did not have any impact on _her_.

The pink haired kunoichi let out a bitter sob. It raked her body and sent her mind reeling. Half consciously, she rammed her head repeatedly against the door behind her until a warm yet chilling liquid dripped down the back of her neck and seeped into her uniform. Shakily, Sakura reached into the secret compartments of her armour vest and pulled out a crumpled soiled roll of bandage. She dug her shaking fingernails into the hardened bandage and the dried blood flaked. Slowly and erratically, with her mind still battling the beast within her, she brought the bandage up to her nose and took a desperate whiff. The metallic twang sifted straight to her brain and Sakura experienced the familiar out of the world encounter. Her breathing became erratic as her nostrils flare and contract rapidly.

In her inebriated state, Sakura vaguely wondered how good it would be to have a place in that family.

-

Tsunade, Godaime of Konoha, an outstanding medic nin with extensive experience throughout her luckless life. Could. Not. Even. Save. One. Girl.

She watched with a hated helplessness as Shizune gingerly pulled the white covers over the body of Haruno Sakura, which stained immediately upon contact. The blonde buxom sat on the floor against a bleached wall of Treatment Room 4. Blood stained her face, her hair, her breast, her hands. Everywhere. Sakura was one of the smartest people Tsunade had met in her life. So smart that even in death she bested her teacher.

Hatake Kakashi stepped back as the medics wheeled the body away. He peeled off his gloves and threw them at the sink. He had been called in for his knowledge in various jutsu(s) when informed about the emergency. The copy nin glanced at the silent Godaime on the floor, and then back at the retreating body. A hand fell from the moving bed and something brown dropped onto the floor with a flaky crisp, but nobody bothered to pick it up. Kakashi knew what it was.

Shizune went beside her teacher and knelt down. She put a hesitant hand on Tsunade's shoulder and gently called her name. The blonde head whipped towards the direction of the voice, gave an assuring smile, and got up to leave the room in her usual saunter.

Tsunade was a remarkable sight with all the gore. As she pushed past the doors and exited the room which smells heavily of Sakura, the small group of people waiting impatiently at the corridors stopped in their mid-actions. The Godaime noted distractedly at the five shinobis present, all the remaining friends of her former student.

Uzumaki Naruto, in his rage and grief bombarded the Hokage the moment he caught her. Shizune placed herself in between the two bodies and barked at the unruly jounin to _back off_.

"WHY! OBBA-CHAN!" he screamed and hollered and kicked up a huge fuss so much so that Shikamaru had to punch the man to temporarily shut him up. Ino stood quietly beside her former teammate, a crumpled tissue in her clenched fists. Hinata and Chouji flanked the distressed blonde, occasionally offering empty words as their own shock swirl in their cold blood.

"Naruto."

Everyone seemed to have forgotten that the copy nin was there, as Tsunade widened her eyes slightly at the sight of Kakashi. She nodded mutely at him, a non-verbal order passed between them. The copy nin grabbed his student by the arm and pulled him roughly to his feet.

"Kakashi-sensei! Sakura-"

He was silenced by the callous tone and the exposed Sharingan that was still spinning. "That's enough."

Tsunade did not look back as she walked away with Shizune in tow. Time seemed to have frozen everyone else to their spot; no one could comprehend the hectic and chaotic medic staff running around and barking orders, weaving around the still bodies blocking a good portion of the corridor. Voices were loud, crude and grating to their anguished silence, the noises and activities melted and dulled until the entire situation felt surreal. Naruto did not bother to go after the Godaime.

"Shikamaru, could you take Naruto for a while. I have matters to attend to."

Shikamaru stilled when his name was mention, but managed to choke out a reply, "Y-Yeah.."

The copy nin shot Naruto a stern chilling stare that many had seen just before their last breaths. Naruto gritted his teeth and turned to abuse the peeling walls with all his might. Kakashi left without another word.

--

Tsunade did not have the time to clean up to look presentable in front of her shinobis. She would not have bothered anyway. The high noon sun hung in the sky over the Hidden Leaf as its merciless heat seep through the walls and the _fucking cheery sunlight_ shone into the Hokage's office and onto the bloodied frame of the quiet women sprawled out in her armchair. Shizune stood obediently by her side.

"We have rounded up Haruno Sakura's direct contacts around the village at the centre. We will have their statements very soon." Morino Ibiki reported stoically to his heedless superior. A slight sparkle lighted in her eyes as dulled honey brown eyes swept across the two ninjas in front of her messy desk.

Ebisu adjusted his sunglasses, "Hokage-sama, the results from the labs have shown that the blood kept in the cabinet belongs to various deceased shinobis from the Leaf and Sand. They are, Uchiha Sasuke… "the man made a barely concealed noise as he struggled along the list, "Rock Lee, Hyuuga Neji, Sarutobi Asuma, Kankuro of the Sand, Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino, Haruno…" and the list went on.

Tsunade wanted them to get the fucking hell _out_ of her office. She had inspected the scene herself earlier on and knew every _fucking_ item that was there, and what was _not_ there. Godaime's disinterested eyes flickered over to the storybooks placed orderly on her disorganized pile of other documents. She glanced briefly at the receipts arranged neatly on the other side of her desk.

She looked back to the storybooks and her eyes lingered on the one with a red flourish title against a stark white background, obviously handwritten and not purchased from any bookstore. Little Red Riding Hood, by Haruno Sakura.

-

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It was not a story of Little Red Riding Hood like Tsunade had expected. It was a diary. The thick tome was filled with pages of neat handwritings about her life, and their lives. It was written in code, which gave the reader quite a bit of trouble. Godaime was mildly surprised at the metaphors and abstract concepts used to represent the more classified portions of her days.

_Little Red noticed her grandma's peculiar behaviour and features, but she just could not pinpoint _what

The diary stopped here, most likely abandoned halfway. Tsunade shut the tome in her lap and massage her tired eyes. Night has fallen, and the stars seemed to be mocking her. She remembered from her hazy memory a voice that sounded like Shizune telling her that Sakura's funeral will be held tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. Her presence would be required naturally. She moved to stand but somehow she wobbled the moment she was on her feet, her eyes were suddenly frighteningly bleary. The tome of Little Red Riding Hood plunked loudly at her feet, crushing some of the delicate pages. Tsunade cursed as she bent to pick up the book. She smoothed the creases with her fingers and uncurled several accidental folds- her hand froze at the last page.

Tsunade peeled away the back cover and read the inscriptions on the last page of the tome. Written in black ink and with expertise handwriting at the bottom of the page, Tsunade's stunned vision took in the beautifully grafted words.

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_In a house of __deceit where she finds._

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Author's Note: This fic does not follow any specific timeline, but it's set after the Sasuke incident. For anyone who might wonder, Sakura merely collected (or stole) their blood and customized every one of their essence into perfume. And also, that "Haruno" Ebisu was reading off the list was Sakura's mother. I couldn't think of a name for her. It is not clear how she passed in this story, meaning I couldn't think of a decent reason. This is my first one-shot, and first Naruto fic. Go easy on me okay? R&R please!

This one-shot was inspired by **Kimi no vanilla's Serenade**.


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